How to revise for the GPhC registration assessment

A revision plan built on the documents the GPhC publishes about its own assessment, with a link to each. Checked on 3 October 2026.

Start with the GPhC's own documents

Before you buy or download anything else, read what the GPhC publishes. Five documents tell you what the assessment covers and how it runs:

• The Common Registration Assessment framework. This is what may be assessed. The GPhC says all assessment content is "directly derived from it".
• The specification and permitted items. This explains how the day runs and lists the approved calculator models.
• The example questions and their guide. The Part 1 and Part 2 example questions run on Surpass, the platform the assessment uses; the guide gives the answers and explains how the platform works.
• Key insights from the June 2026 assessment. This is where the Board of Assessors saw candidates struggle.
• The regulations for the sitting.

All five are on the GPhC's Sitting the Common Registration Assessment page. On 3 October 2026 the framework, specification and regulations were the versions "for sittings in 2026". If you sit in June 2027, check that page again for the 2027 versions.

GPhC: Common Registration Assessment, Sitting the Common Registration Assessment, framework for sittings in 2026 (PDF), specification and permitted items (PDF), example questions guide (PDF).

Know the shape of the assessment

The assessment has two parts. You need the pass mark or more in both parts at the same sitting. A strong Part 2 can't make up for a weak Part 1.

• Part 1: calculations. 40 questions in 120 minutes, with your answer typed as a number. That is about 3 minutes a question.
• Part 2: safe and effective pharmacy care. 120 multiple-choice questions in 150 minutes: 90 single best answer questions with five options, and 30 extended matching questions with eight options. The GPhC's own guide is about 1 minute per single best answer question and 2 minutes per extended matching question.
• Calculators. You can use an approved model in both parts, and a basic on-screen calculator is provided. Only the models on the GPhC's list are allowed, so check yours well before the day.
• No negative marking. In the GPhC's words: "There are no penalties for incorrect answers or unanswered questions." Never leave a question blank.

Once you have an account, the Mock paper on Home sets a timed Part 1 or Part 2 with the same number of questions and the same time as the real part, with no feedback until the end.

GPhC framework for sittings in 2026; specification and permitted items.

What carries the most weight

The GPhC doesn't publish a percentage for each topic. The framework says: "There is no fixed minimum or maximum number of questions assigned to each clinical therapeutic area". What it gives you instead is an order. The fifteen clinical areas are "ordered based on their prevalence in the assessment", from most often assessed to least:

1. Cardiovascular
2. Central nervous
3. Endocrine
4. Infection
5. Gastro-intestinal
6. Respiratory
7. Musculoskeletal and joint diseases
8. Nutrition and blood
9. Malignant disease and immunosuppression
10. Skin
11. Eye
12. Ear, nose and oropharynx
13. Vaccines
14. Drug toxicity
15. Obstetrics, gynaecology and genito-urinary

Most Part 2 questions apply clinical knowledge to patient scenarios. The rest are on law, governance and regulation, which can also turn up inside calculation and clinical questions.

Two lists cut across every area. The first is the high-risk drug classes: anti-infectives, anti-thrombotics, chemotherapy, conventional DMARDs, corticosteroids, hypnotics and anxiolytics, immunosuppressants, insulins, narrow therapeutic index medicines and those needing drug monitoring, opioids, teratogenic medicines and time-critical medicines. The second is MHRA and Commission on Human Medicines safety alerts, which the GPhC expects you to keep up to date with.

Our suggestion, which is not a GPhC weighting: give your time roughly in the framework's order, and treat the high-risk classes as a second pass through every area.

GPhC framework for sittings in 2026.

Revise to apply, not to recall

The framework says the assessment "prioritises the assessment of a trainee pharmacist's ability to apply pharmacy knowledge and skills to relevant scenarios over factual recall". Questions put a medicine in front of a particular person. The framework names pregnancy, breastfeeding, older people, palliative and end-of-life care, renal or hepatic impairment, multiple conditions, and children. For each topic you revise, ask how the answer changes for each of those people.

Some questions come with a resource on screen, such as a BNF extract, an SmPC, a prescription, a medication administration record or a controlled drugs register. Practise finding information in those layouts quickly. Normal ranges for lab results are given, but normal ranges for common physiological measurements are not, and nor are common guidelines: the framework expects "a working knowledge" of them.

GPhC framework for sittings in 2026.

Calculations: little and often

Every Part 1 paper includes at least one of each of nine calculation types: concentrations, dilutions, displacement volumes, doses and dosage regimens, infusion rates, medical statistics, pharmacoeconomics, pharmacokinetics and quantities to supply. Every question takes more than one step. Simple formulae such as body mass index aren't given; more complex ones are. Doing a few questions most days builds speed better than a long session once a week. Our calculations guide works through one example of each type.

GPhC framework for sittings in 2026.

Use the June 2026 insights, carefully

After the June 2026 sitting, the Board of Assessors named areas where performance suggested more development was needed.

• Part 1: displacement volumes, infusion rates, medical statistics and pharmacokinetics. They also flagged quantities to supply, rounding, units and checking that an answer is realistic.
• Part 2: antiplatelet, anticoagulant and lipid-modifying treatment; telling an allergy from an adverse reaction, and antimicrobial stewardship; asthma and COPD; menopause treatment; and contraception.
• Law: controlled drugs and emergency supply.

The Board says these insights "do not indicate that these topic areas are more likely to appear in future assessments". Read them as places where candidates tend to slip, not as a forecast.

GPhC Board of Assessors, Key insights from the June 2026 Common Registration Assessment (PDF).

Keep your sources current

Guidance changes, and revision material doesn't update itself. A question written a few years ago can teach a treatment step that NICE has since changed. Whatever you revise from, check when it was written and where each answer comes from. That applies to PharmRevise too. Our terms of use say a key that was right when it was written can become wrong, so check the source shown with each answer.

A plan to June 2027

The June 2027 assessment is on Tuesday 15 June 2027, and results are due on Tuesday 20 July 2027 (GPhC).

• October to December: read the framework and rate yourself on each of the fifteen areas. Start calculations three or four times a week. Learn the law alongside practice, not at the end.
• January to March: work through the clinical areas in the framework's order, using mixed questions rather than one topic at a time. The reasonable adjustment deadline is 17:00 on Wednesday 17 February 2027.
• April to May: practise under time, using full-length papers at the GPhC's timings, and go back over every question you got wrong.
• June: do the GPhC's example questions on its platform, check your calculator against the approved list, and keep the last days light.

Sitting on Tuesday 10 November 2026 instead? Put the time into calculations under time and your weakest areas.

GPhC Sitting the Common Registration Assessment.

Where question banks fit

The Board of Assessors is plain about this: it does "not endorse external revision or preparation materials as these may differ in content, style and level of challenge compared to the actual assessment". That includes PharmRevise. The GPhC's own advice is that "the best preparation for the assessment comes from the experience gained during the foundation training year". Use any question bank as practice, and check its answers against their sources.

On PharmRevise, each written question names the source its answer key is based on, and most quote the passage. Calculation questions show a worked solution.

GPhC Board of Assessors, Key insights from the June 2026 Common Registration Assessment (PDF, p.1); GPhC Sitting the Common Registration Assessment.

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Not affiliated with or endorsed by the General Pharmaceutical Council. A revision guide, not official information about the assessment, and not clinical advice. Quotations are from the GPhC's Common Registration Assessment framework for sittings in 2026, its Key insights from the June 2026 assessment, and its Sitting the Common Registration Assessment page, each linked above and checked 3 October 2026. See our terms of use and privacy notice.